I never dreamed we’d live in a day where a pandemic sweeps our world…..but then again, I suppose nobody really thinks about things like that until it happens.

Living in the middle of nowhere like we do, I really thought we’d be some of the last people to feel the effects of the virus sweeping our nation. I was wrong.

Earlier this week most things were still open. Then our town quickly shut down. . . .then the Dollar General (the only somewhat reliable place to buy toiletries around here, unless you want to drive 20+ miles). Now we’re under a ban that prohibits groups of more than 10 people from meeting.

I’m so thankful God allowed our tax refund to come in when it did. We used it to stock up on stuff, so thankfully I’m not terribly worried going into a couple weeks of isolation. But seriously here – we have 6 kids. It’s not possible to be isolated in our house.

Our business is still open, for the time being. . . .at least until our suppliers close. Lord willing they’ll be able to stay open. But if not, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

We’ve prepared as best we can for the weeks ahead. Only God knows what the future holds.

One thing I know beyond a shadow of a doubt. God is in control. He said He would provide for us, and He’s not going to stop now just because things look scary.

After I posted on Monday about God meeting our needs, He has continued to provide for us, in ways we didn’t expect.

I posted on Facebook the same post I put here. I wanted to give God praise at what He has done.

Yesterday I was chatting with another pastor’s wife about my frustrations about taxes this year (we accidentally missed sending some information to our CPA so it made things look pretty discouraging until it was all worked out). She asked if she and her family could come by today. They are dear friends, so of course I said we’d love it for them to visit.

They came with goodies. Chocolate cupcakes and strawberry rhubarb crisp. How’s that for an encouragement? But what amazes me is they handed us an envelope, saying that somebody had put it in the offering plate with our name on it.

Our pipes burst from the cold this week. We keep a space heater on them so they won’t freeze, but they still did. We have water inside the house (these are the pipes in the garage), but no way to pay a plumber to fix them. There was enough money in the envelope to call a plumber. Stephen tries to fix as much as he can, but doesn’t have the tools for copper pipes yet.

After they left, I got a message from someone, asking me to call her. I did. The woman explained that she heard about our situation and wanted to give us money and food, and could we please come pick it up tomorrow. That amount was almost exactly what we needed to pay the electric bill.

Friday someone pulled my husband aside and slipped him $100. We needed groceries pretty badly and this was a huge help.

Saturday a $200 check came in the mail. This also went toward groceries. A family of 8 eats a lot!

Today we went to go get groceries. On the way there, we got a message that somebody had paid for 100 gallons of oil for us, and that it will be delivered today. Our tank is almost empty and we weren’t sure when we were going to get more. The oil truck arrived a few minutes after we got home.

Being a pastor’s wife is such an adventure. I figured it might be, but it’s different than what I expected. And in some ways, the same.

I’ve always wanted to be a pastor’s wife, especially after my husband surrendered to preach 12 years ago. We didn’t know then what God had in store, but I can see how He has been preparing and growing us over those years while we were waiting.

We love this little town God put us in. It’s tiny, with not much here. Our house is on a major highway, right in town….something I never wanted. But because it’s a small town and we’re so remote, it’s still nice and quiet like we like.

Our congregation is small. We knew it would be just starting out, since the church hasn’t had a pastor living in town in three years. We’ve had a lot of visitors. Some by word of mouth, some found the church Facebook page, and some came from the tracts we passed out in town this fall. It’s been encoouraging.

We had our first Christmas program last week. The kids worked SO hard to prepare, and I’m so proud of them. I wrote the program, keeping it simple because of the number of kids involved. They did so well.

I recently started taking a photo course by Schultz Photo School called Photo Fix. I’m not done with the course yet, but it’s been fun to take pictures and to see progress as I go.

Years ago I bought a Nikon DSLR for photographing the jewelry in my shop. I took a few courses to learn how to photograph jewelry, got decent enough at that, but could never learn how to photograph people all that well.

Now that we’re here in Maine, I want to learn how to use the camera for photographing people. My kids are already tired of me taking pictures of them. Hahahaha!